


He Determines the Number of the Stars

by NichePastiche



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Crowley Was Raphael Before He Fell (Good Omens), Denial of Feelings, Drunk Crowley (Good Omens), Feelings Realization, M/M, Middle Names, Missing Scene, Nude Modeling, Sad Crowley (Good Omens), Spanish Inquisition, carefully not talking about things while also talking about them
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-16
Updated: 2019-07-16
Packaged: 2020-06-29 12:50:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,110
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19830589
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NichePastiche/pseuds/NichePastiche
Summary: This is a story about Crowley finding out about the Spanish Inquisition.It is also a story about names, their significance, and honoring those we care about once they are gone.I expected the show to include a scene where Crowley receives a commendation for the Spanish Inquisition, and gets drunk for a week. It didn't, so I wrote one.The title is from Psalm 147





	He Determines the Number of the Stars

**Author's Note:**

> This was supposed to be a 100 word drabble on the end of a tumblr conversation about how Crowley’s Roman Look is Very Strange, and Crowley wearing Depressed Floor Laundry because he's sad about humans being horrible to each other and also Jesus died. I would provide a link if i could figure out how.
> 
> wisteria-lodge on tumblr was kind enough to act as beta for this and encouraged me to share it.  
> I can be found at https://niche-pastiche.tumblr.com.

Time passes. It’s the middle ages. Humans change in some ways, stay the same in others.

The point is, middle names have started to become a thing. He can’t decide on one. Humans are doing it because they want to name the kid after both its dad and a saint or maybe just because they can’t make up their minds. He doesn’t care. It’s inconvenient, but he needs to think of something before it has a chance to become a problem. He just has no idea what name to choose.

He’s mulling it over in a cantina when the commendation arrives. He had no idea what they think he’d done this time. He doesn’t even bother trying to find somewhere less public to read it. It’s not like the contents of the letter are going to be in Spanish…

Okay. That’s new. Last time he’d checked he was the only demon who’d bothered to learn the language. At least, the current version. Languages had an annoying habit of changing every few centuries and sometimes it feels like having to start all over again. The letter was in Spanish. But not the entire letter. Apparently he was being given a commendation for something called the “Tribunal del Santo Oficio de la Inquisición,” which sounded fancy. He’d never heard of it, but unless Hell had messed up the details, it wasn’t too far from his current location. Not one to let good alcohol go to waste, he finished his drink, and left to go see if he could figure out what all the fuss was about.

It didn’t take long to figure out, once he got there. Humans. Again. They were doing it again. They had never stopped, really. He wanted to stop them. Say something. He wanted to scream, to run and keep running until he found Aziraphale. The angel could stop this. He wouldn’t let people do this to each other. He wouldn’t just stand by and watch as humans…That was the thing that did it. Crowley’s stomach finally rebelled, and even though there was nothing there, he almost wished there was, because right now it felt like his heart was trying to leave his body via his mouth. He didn’t think that was possible, but he also didn’t think that humans could…

He left. He couldn’t help them. And he couldn’t stand it. So he left. He desperately tried not to hear the old woman begging for mercy from men she had helped midwife into the world. Crowley walked faster. He wanted to run but that would just draw attention. It was just like humans. All of this was. You work hard to do the right thing, keep people safe, and then they repay you by killing you. 

Eventually, Crowley gets back to a cantina… a cantina… alcohol. It’s not the fancy place he left, that would have felt wrong. He was planning to get drunk enough to be thrown out of most establishments, respectable and otherwise. No. He’d get as much alcohol as he could and proceed to go drink himself senseless.

He didn’t actually know where he was or how he got there. He might have passed out at some point. It turns out he’s rented a room in a brothel? Apparently he’d shown up at their door drunk, looking like a rain soaked cat, and payed good money to be left alone in a corner with his wine. Apparently he’d spent an entire week there. He has no memory of it, but things must have been bad based on the looks he was getting. He’d apparently crawled under the nearest table and lost consciousness hugging a bottle of wine like his life depended on it. He’d been drunk for…he didn’t know. He should really get more.

Somehow he ends up in Italy and decides to check out the art scene. A guy named Donatello asks him to model for a statue. Apparently it’s supposed to be David, but Crowley is pretty sure this Donatello guy just wants an excuse to watch Crowley pose naked in a hat and boots. He needs to tell Hell he’s doing something, and inspiring lust through sculpture seems like something they’d accept. He’s one of their best employees, after all. He feels sick.

It’s boring, modeling. It gives him time to think. This whole mess had brought up some bad memories, but he had finally decided on a middle name. The humans usually went for stuff about saints or their dad. He had been around humans for too long to think any of them capable of being saints, and he didn’t actually have a father. Angels and demons only had the one parent, really. 

Humans used places sometimes, but he wasn’t exactly fond of where he was from. It had taken him long enough to decide on Antony and he still hadn’t told Aziraphale about that one. He was just getting used to the idea himself. He liked it, but it was so new. It had only been a couple hundred years since he’d made up his mind. He wanted to be sure before he told Aziraphale. What if he didn’t like it? Somehow, the angel’s opinion had started to matter at some point. 

That didn’t change the fact that humans were going to expect him to have a middle name soon… Anthony Crowley. Anthony… Aziraphale Crowley? No, that was a horrible idea. He needed something more normal, but he wanted it to mean something. The inquisition had been awful, but Spain had been fun. The people, the wine, the language. It had a nice sound, Spanish. Maybe something Spanish? His first name was Etruscan, and he’d mostly just liked the sound of it. He went through a mental list of names. He wanted something meaningful, but not too flashy or memorable. Something common would be ideal. Humans remembered unusual, and his eyes were bad enough. Crowley had some suspicions about why the angel hadn’t shortened his name yet, but there was really only so many similar sounding human names he could have chosen and whatever the reason, Crowley was grateful Aziraphale was so staunchly against the name Raphael.

Crowley’s memory unhelpfully supplies him with a perfect recollection of that conversation. He had broached the topic once, and when he’d mentioned that Raphael was the clear option, the angel had made a face and said “It wouldn’t feel right, would it? It belongs to someone else, even if they’re not using it at the moment.” Aziraphale had paused briefly, and neither of them were looking at each other when he continued. 

“It-It would be different if he weren’t around. If he were really gone. Then, I think…I think I might want to use that name. Just to keep something of him around. Because… I may not have known him all that well, but the more I learn about him,” Aziraphale trailed off. 

Crowley had forgotten to blink, but he still wasn’t looking at the angel. He felt a hand on his shoulder but kept his eyes averted. 

“Crowley? I’ve been wondering. If someday something were to happen, and the wrong people discover-” Aziraphale caught himself, “If something went horribly wrong, and Raphael was ever gone completely- ” 

Crowley could imagine the look on Aziraphale’s face right now. It was clear in his voice. The angel was upset. “I was wondering if… you would mind if I decided to start using his name. It’s silly, when I think about it, but I thought I would ask what you thought he would say. If I could ask him?” 

Crowley struggled for words. He wondered how long Aziraphale had known. He hadn’t told him, they had never talked about it, but part of him was glad he had figured it out. He thought for a few minutes before answering.

“I think he would tell you that… if there was no chance of him coming back to you, that it would-” Crowley had to force the words out. “He would say that he never would have left willingly. And if you wanted to do that for him it would be… alright.”

Crowley had closed his eyes and turned away from Aziraphale. “He’d be honored.”

Aziraphale’s hand was still on Crowley’s shoulder. Crowley wanted to run, but he didn’t want to lose that point of contact. So he stayed. After a few moments the angel let go. Crowley turned back around to face him. Aziraphale’s gaze was fixed on an unremarkable spot on the ground. 

Crowley hated this. He hated the look on his angel’s face. It was entirely possible that something could happen, and he didn’t want Aziraphale hurting like this. He put an uncharacteristic amount of care into choosing his next words, “A man is not dead while his name is still spoken.”

Aziraphale looked at him sharply. It was piercing, like a blade through his ribcage and Crowley had no idea how he had ever let any of this happen. He needed Aziraphale to go back to their pretense. The one where Crowley had no feelings and certainly not these feelings. (He refused to put a name to them.)

Mask firmly back in place, he tried to make his voice as dismissive as possible, “I think it’s a bunch of sentimental nonsense, but that’s the kind of thing humans believe. I think. They haven’t really found the right words for it yet. But I’m sure they’ll get there eventually.”

Crowley comes back to the present, and realizes he’s being dismissed. He gets to keep the hat, which is nice. It goes with his hair. But apparently he’s “ruined the face by pouting” and has to either come back “and try to look less morose” or Donatello’s just going to have to find someone “with a better face. Yours is sad.” Crowley is vaguely insulted. He has every right to be sad, every once in a while. He’s been on earth since the beginning, and humans keep doing horrible things to each other and there’s nothing he can do about it. And there’s only two people in all of Creation who had ever been willing to so much as talk to him after finding out what he was. And one of them is dead (but only to Crowley). The horrible humans who killed him have the option of seeing him someday, maybe saying “I miss talking to you,” or “I’m sorry I got mad and told you to go jump off a cliff when you were just treating me the same way you would anyone else.” But Crowley can’t do that. They could have been friends, maybe. But now he was dead, and humans were still torturing each other, only this time they were doing it in the name of… 

Names. The humans may have forgotten, but he hadn’t. And he had been trying to think of a fairly common Spanish name. Yes. That would do nicely. If it ever ended up on any paperwork Down Below, he could explain it away with this awful commendation he’d just gotten. After all, they had been conducting the Inquisition in his name. It’s not like the humans had forgotten he existed, they’d just forgotten… the important parts.

He didn’t think he wanted to tell Aziraphale. He might not even be able to, if he tried. Names, powerful names could be funny that way. But he could see the sort of human he was pretending to be having a middle name like that. He wouldn’t have to say it. Humans were just starting to care about keeping track of people, and the next time he had to miracle a new forged document to prove he was an actual human who existed for a normal amount of time, he thought he was going to be from Spain. And his name was going to be Anthony Jes -

On second thought, maybe that’s risky. Anthony J. Crowley… might work. That felt small enough, safe enough. He wouldn’t tarnish his memory by association, not if he kept it to himself. There were lots of names that started with J. No one would ever guess he’d chosen… this one.

Much much later, in a church with an angel and some soon to be dead Nazis, Crowley’s feet are burning when someone finally asks him. He almost answers, then thinks better of it. His feet are burning and he’s already on unsure footing ecclesiastically, so to speak. Better not risk it.

Besides, this is private. And if he ever does tell someone, it’s not going to be where a bunch of Nazis can hear him.

“Nhm. It’s just a “J’ really.”

**Author's Note:**

> "He determines the number of the stars  
>  and calls them each by name."  
> \- Psalm 147:4 (NIV)


End file.
